


The Apocalypse Comes Slowly

by citizen101erased



Series: Dan & Phil drabbles [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Apocalypse, Drought, Gen, Gen Fic, honestly not much happens so I'm not sure how to tag this, the age of miracles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 12:46:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15606588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citizen101erased/pseuds/citizen101erased
Summary: It feels like a slow apocalypse, Dan thinks. No bells and whistles, no four apocalyptic horsemen, just a drought setting in one day and never leaving again. He would have more opinions about it if he could do more than lying on the floor all day in front of a fan.





	The Apocalypse Comes Slowly

**Author's Note:**

> semi-Age of Miracles AU 
> 
> Or the one in which I channel my frustration about this drought and a lot of issues at work into...whatever this is. This is very, very loosely based on a book called The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker (which I read recently and highly recommend), and also on my own experience/frustration with this actual IRL drought. 
> 
> (This is also mostly just writing practice to get back in the habit)

The first time there were news articles about the ongoing drought and an incoming heatwave, Dan had barely paid attention to it. After all, he could just stay inside, put on the airconditioning now they finally have a decent, actually quiet one, and just continue doing his thing. Besides, a lot of news outlets liked to exaggerate and scaremonger, thriving on scandal, so he wasn’t about to take this particularly seriously. Phil took to it with his usual enthusiasm for about 30 minutes, googling the science behind the heatwave and excitedly telling Dan all about it during dinner that night. 

For a while, that was it. The world kept spinning and everyone went on as usual, albeit a bit more hot and sweaty. They filmed two gaming videos, Dan worked on some ideas for videos for his own channel, and if they ordered some extra icecream with their pizza, well, that’s perfectly allowed with this heat, right?

Several weeks into the drought and a week into the first real, tropical heatwave, Dan notices the news started taking a more ominous turn. A reporter walks in a field, explaining step-by-step the process of how trees die. Because they were dying, the soil being too dry. First, they drop some leaves. Then their fruit. Then their bark. Then all the remaining leaves. After that, it’s too late to save them. The scenery on the train to Dan’s hometown looks part autumn, part desert, as if nature isn’t quite sure what part of the year it is. Still, most people (Phil included) seem to still be taking this as a fun, very sunny summer. Dan ignores the knot in his stomach, and plays with his parents’ dog on yellow, dry grass, the dust going up in clouds wherever Colin jumps around.

Upon returning back home, he finds Phil asleep on the couch, in front of the air conditioning. His laptop is open on the table, the browser filled with tabs about weather patterns, climate change, and the effects of drought on animals and plants. Dan takes off Phil’s glasses and puts them next to the laptop, closing it, before softly continuing to his room to put away his luggage.

The heatwave comes to an official end after 12 days with a thunderstorm. The weather report promises rain, lots and lots of rain.  _ Be careful of flooding _ , they say. The soil is baked so dry it can’t absorb water, which means all the water has to go somewhere else instead. Phil excitedly puts his plants outside on the balcony.  _ Just in case it really does rain a lot, _ he says, smiling brightly. Dan helps him out and pretends to be very reluctant about it, knowing fully well that Phil sees right through that act but doing it anyway. The thunder comes first, just the sound of thunder rolling somewhere in the distance as the skies darken. The heat becomes so oppressive it’s hard to do anything more than just lie on the couch, so they put on the anime of the week and bring pitchers of water from the kitchen before settling down. Halfway through the first episode it starts raining. It lasts for approximately 6 minutes before kind of tapering of and then it’s gone.

That evening, after the sky has gone back to its now-usual pristine blue, they decide to go for a slow jog. It’s still too hot to really do a lot of exercise, but Dan still tries to keep up an exercise & sunlight routine of some sort. Phil is there partly out of solidarity with Dan and partly out of guilt for the sheer amount of sweets he inhales on a daily basis. Dan is mostly just grateful to not have to go out by himself. He notices the ground in London’s parks is littered with leaves, tree bark, and dead birds.

He is reading up on the latest announcements (more drought, sahara winds coming up from over Portugal, wildfires north of the Arctic circle, a national disaster in Japan as they get hit by drought, floods, heatwaves, and typhoons, dozens burned alive in Greece) when a loud bang on his window shakes him. Opening his curtains slightly to not let the heat in too much, he sees a pigeon on his windowsill. It’s dead. The birds have been dying for a while now, but he’d somehow expected the pigeons to survive anyway. They always seem so resilient.

It still takes another two weeks for the water rationing to really hit civilians. Showers are limited to twice a week. Dan is grateful he doesn’t have to go out much. Several of Phil’s plants haven’t made it through, and Phil throws them in the garbage bin with a mournful face and a short eulogy that he then posts on Twitter. He announces new merch the next day: handheld fans, scented face mists, loose-fit cotton tops, hats, parasol umbrellas, everything emblazoned with the new D&P logo and available in pastel or black.

Things just keep getting worse from there. It hasn’t rained in months, just an endless drought in the entire northern hemisphere. The first time the electricity cuts off, Dan is up early and just starting to make coffee for himself and Phil. The coffee maker starts rumbling in preparation of making some delicious and much needed coffee, then quiets down again suddenly. Dan is about to check for faults with the machine when he realizes the whole apartment has gone awfully quiet. The lack of constant background noises of their variety of appliances is strangely unnerving and seems to emphasize the noise from outside. Dan is about to put on his shoes to go to the Starbucks around the corner when the coffee maker comes back on.

The electricity starts cutting off more and more often. There isn’t enough water left to cool down generators. Dan and Phil decide to start a weekly board game evening with whichever friend is willing to brave the heat to come over that week. They film new videos when they can. Views have dropped, though the merch is still selling well enough. Phil puts his phone aside, saving the battery for when it’s really needed. Dan makes sure the moments they do have electricity are partially used to charge a lot of external batteries at once.

Now the water, trees, electricity and birds have largely gone, other things start to go in increasingly rapid fashion. Photos taken from space show the UK as a largely brown island. There aren’t that many photos now; the astronauts are reverting all research towards what’s happening on earth and how to save as many people as possible. Human deaths caused directly by drought-related causes are well in their thousands now. There are wildfires raging all over the globe, causing air pollution and a refugee stream running in the millions of people. Both Dan and Phil themselves and their companies are largely coasting by on reserves by now.

When the rain finally comes back, it’s almost hard to believe. Dan realizes it’s happening while they’re spread out on their couch, half-watching a new season of American Horror Story in a rare moment of electricity. For a moment, he thought the rain was in the show for added dramatic effect, and it took a moment to realize the sound of rain pattering against a window is on  _ their  _ window. Phil jumps up excitedly, grabbing his phone and switching it back on while running outside. Dan checks the weather report on his phone first. It shows massive clouds covering half of Europe. His phone keeps pinging with updates about how the drought is ending, the weather forecast says there’s going to be a lot of rain for a while (the rain itself is dangerous, bringing all kinds of ash and dirt with it, and the news bulletins keep adding to please not spend too much time in the rain).

It will take months, if not years, to recover from this drought. Both society and the ecosystem are in shambles. No one knows if it will happen again, or how often. Companies have gone bankrupt, governments are in disarray, and entire species have gone extinct.

Dan looks up from his phone to see Phil outside, already soaked, saying something into his camera, undoubtedly getting ready to upload all kinds of inane nonsense to all his social media the moment everything’s back online. Dan smiles, finally puts his phone away, and joins Phil outside.


End file.
